Down and Dirty Duck

1974 "Madder than Daffy, dumber than Donald, more existential than Howard!"
5.3| 1h10m| NC-17| en
Details

Willard, a mild mannered insurance adjuster, teams up with a foul-mouthed fowl who takes Willard on a surreal quest to become less uptight - and possibly get laid in the process.

Director

Producted By

Murakami-Wolf Productions

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Trailers & Clips

Also starring Cynthia Adler

Reviews

SmugKitZine Tied for the best movie I have ever seen
Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??
Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.
Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
wlfgdn I am a major Zappa fan and I think the later Flo & Eddie albums were excellent, but this movie is wretched. No time, effort or money were put into the production. Absent of plot, horrible line drawing animation, crappy soundtrack. Very bad movies can be fun if they are campy enough, but this one offers nothing. Stupid from start to finish and incredibly BORING to one and all. I saw this film at a late show on it's first and only run, it was billed as "Cheap" in fact. "Cheap" was not the "working title" it was THE title of the movie in the credits and as advertised on the radio spot that brought it to my attention. The "Duck" re-title was a shameless re-package of a total loser. There is a reason this film was never shown again and never released on videotape IT IS THAT BAD so forget any fanciful comparisons made to anything worthwhile, it is a complete waste of time to watch.
cultfilmfan Dirty Duck, is an adult animated film about Willard, who is a shy and nervous insurance worker who is in love with one of the receptionists at work but he can't seem to talk to women too well and one day he is asked to go investigate a claim made by a woman who owns a tattoo parlour. She claims that a Ouija board told her she was going to die today and just as Willard gets there she does die. In the will the woman left Willard, her full grown sun who happens to be a duck. Willard, and the duck wonder around and meet very unusual people and get in numerous unusual situations and the duck tries to give Willard, more confidence in himself and tries to teach him how to get a woman. Lots of psychedelic and unique images follow. Dirty Duck, has a good soundtrack which is composed by Flo and Eddie, who were members of the band The Mothers Of Invention, and also did voices and wrote some of the film. The film itself isn't great. It took a long time for me to get into it and a lot of the visual and sex gags I just didn't find funny and they got tiring after awhile. There wasn't much story to the film either. I did like some of the visual gags and some of the film was very unique and had some clever ideas but it doesn't quite work as a whole. It's not a terrible movie but not a great one either because a lot of it just does not work. The film seems to be made after the success of 1972's X rated adult animated film Fritz The Cat, and in some ways is similar although Fritz was a groundbreaking film and this is not. Still there were parts I liked and maybe with repeat viewings I may like it more.
keefycub Exciting movie made with Flo & Eddie after their edition of the Mothers of Invention's splitting up in the wake of Frank Zappa's being injured by a deranged fan onstage in London in 1971. This included Mark Volman, Howard Kaylan, Jim Pons, Aynsley Dunbar, and more surprisingly, Tim Weissberg. This movie fits well into Zappa's Conceptual Continuity, and even provides links not common in Zappa's oeuvre. People who find 200 Motels entertaining and funny will find this movie uproarious.Many people seem to think this movie is a Fritz the Cat knockoff, but it is lightyears from that movie; all the two really share in common is an X rating and that they're animated. The biggest difference is that Dirty Duck, like most of Zappa's work, does provide social commentary, although it might not be exactly what you want to hear.Plotwise, it may be confusing to today's viewers given that many references have passed out of mainstream popular culture, especially those who were born in the early 70's. For those who were there, it'll bring back things you thought you forgot about. Many old movie cliches are bandied about mercilessly.Some of the sexual humor is a bit juvenile, like the Flo & Eddie era Mothers, but at no point is it gratuitous. This movie has everything in its place for a reason even if it's not readily apparent, much like Zappa's music. Zappa fans (especially Flo & Eddie era Mothers) will flip. The rest of you may scratch your heads and find it funny in spots. I just rewind my copy and watch it again and pick something new up from the plot (it's *that* layered, folks).
Quimper Flo & Eddie of The Turtles and Zappa fame perform the songs and voice the main characters of this pretty good animated film. It's short, coming in at barely over an hour, but it's effective in it's animation style (the animation over still photos and clip art) and funny for a number of reasons. Highly sexual, satirical and slapstick. Also highly offensive, especially when it comes to race; as evidenced by the subway pimp that the main character encounters.Set to a lamentably unavailable soundtrack, it's surreal animation sequences more than make up for any lulls or inferred rip-offs. This is a better film than 200 Motels, that's for sure. And who can fault a movie that opens with the song lyric "This whole movie is a giant piece of sh*t..."?